


because the damned alcohol

by torigates



Category: Bones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a long time Booth excused his gambling addiction as something he couldn’t control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	because the damned alcohol

 

 

  


  
_“This kind of reminds me of the first time. I walked in the Desert Inn with thirty-five bucks in my pocket and walked out with a cool ten grand. The next night I lost everything. Tapped out my ATM trying to get it back.”_

For a long time Booth excused his gambling addiction as something he couldn’t control. His old man had been that way; Jared showed signs of being that way, there was nothing he could do about it. He was an addict, and that was all there was to it. He rationalized his choices in a million different ways: what did it matter if he lost all his money? It wasn’t as if there was anyone who was counting on him. He had no one expecting him to be better. It was freeing, in a way. He had spent so much time taking care of Jared, being the good soldier, the obedient soldier. It was exhilarating, it was liberating, it was incredible.

Until it wasn’t.

Booth could still remember the look on his grandfather’s face when he found him in a sketchy motel just outside Las Vegas. Booth had no idea how Hank managed to track him down, or how he even knew where to look, but somehow his grandfather was there, standing over Seeley, while he lay on top of the gross hotel blankets hung over and broker than he’d ever been in his life.

“What are you doing, son?” Hank asked. Booth felt tears spring to his eyes. Honest to god tears, and the next thing he knew he was crying. He felt eighteen again, like life wasn’t even worth living, and if he could just somehow make all the pain and anger go away then everything would be okay again.

Hank sat down next to him on the bed, and Seeley cried. After a long moment, he shoved him off the bed, and Booth fell to the floor. When he managed to get to his feet again, Hank pulled him in for a hug, holding onto him, while he tried not to cry.

“You go shower,” Hank said, and Booth wandered into the bathroom. He turned on the water, and steam began to rise. Booth had enjoyed the freedom gambling had given him, but the more he did it, the deeper he fell, he began to realise that it wasn’t liberation, it was free-falling into an abyss from which there was no end in sight, and he was trapped. He thought he was trapped growing up, he thought he was trapped in the Rangers, following orders, but neither of those things were imprisoning. As he washed the Nevada sweat and dirt off his body, he realised that the only times in his life he’d been truly stuck were when he refused to reach out for help.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

The next day Hank went with him to a GA meeting.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

Hank didn’t trust him alone, for a long time after that, and in a lot of ways, Booth was grateful. It made staying honest easier. Whenever he was tempted to gamble, he thought about the way Pops had looked at him in that hotel room and he called his sponsor. It wasn’t a perfect system, and he fucked up a few more times than he would like to admit, but he got through it. He was getting through it day by day.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

He was fresh out of the program when he met Rebecca, and looking back, Booth can honestly say meeting her changed his life. It sounded melodramatic, but it was true. They met at a bar, which, strictly speaking, Booth knew he shouldn’t have been there. His sponsor had lectured him multiple times about staying away from addictive vices, but his buddies asked him to come out after work, and he was just so tired of letting his addiction dictate his life. He wanted to go out and have a good time with his friends, and he was going to do it.

Rebecca was sitting across the bar, and she was laughing the first time he saw her. Her head was thrown back in a full body laugh, wisps of her blonde hair had fallen out of her ponytail, and Booth thought she was probably the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.

When he asked her if he could buy her a drink she said no.

Ten minutes later she slid up next to him at the bar. Booth looked over at her and raised his eyebrow.

“My friends told me I would be disowned if I didn’t let you buy me a drink,” she said with a laugh.

“Is that so?” he asked, resting his elbow on the counter.

She nodded.

“Well, the offer’s off the table.”

It was her turn to look surprised.

“I will,” Booth continued, “Allow you to buy me a drink. To make it up to me.”

She laughed and bought them a round each. The next one was on him.

She didn’t go home with him that night, but he did leave the bar with her number. When he called her the next day for a date, she said yes.

Before Booth knew it, they were seeing each other nearly every day, and he still hadn’t told her about his gambling. He didn’t know _how_ to tell her about his gambling. Every time he thought he might tell her, he remembered the way Hank had looked at him in that hotel room, the mix of disappointment and pity, and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He never remembered his realisation in the shower that day; that things were always easier with help. He felt like it was his burden, his responsibility.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

When the truth did come out, Rebecca didn’t speak to him for a whole week straight. Booth didn’t know how to make it right.

“There’s nothing to make right, Seeley,” Hank told him. “You lied to the girl. She’ll forgive you or not. There’s nothing else you can do.”

When she forgave him, Booth promised himself he’d never keep this secret from someone important again. He had made mistakes in his life, and he had grown from them. It wasn’t something he had to hide, because it was something that had made him stronger.

 

 

 

++

 

 

 

After Parker was born, after Rebecca said she wouldn’t marry him, his life went to shit for a while. A long while. He relapsed. Nothing so bad as what he went through in Nevada, but he was gambling most days. Every day he didn’t spend with Parker, if he was being honest.

It was easy to hide, because he had gotten better at it. He knew not to bet everything, just enough to get that rush. He knew when to quit, and he told himself he could if he wanted.

He couldn’t.

When he met Brennan the world changed again. It was different. When he was with Rebecca, he had stopped gambling for her. When he met Brennan he stopped gambling for himself.

She made him want to be better.

Booth knew there was nothing in this world he could control _except_ his actions. He couldn’t make Rebecca marry him, he couldn’t could make anyone else do anything they didn’t want to do. He only had his actions.

Most days, it was enough. 


End file.
